SENIOR RESEARCH ESSAY SEMINAR

• Department: American Studies @Barnard
• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Jennie Kassanoff
  CULPA: 20 Info
• 4 points

LARGE LANGUAGE MODELS: FOUNDATIONS AND E

LLM FOUNDATIONS AND ETHIC

Large Language Models (LLMs) such as GPT-3, ChatGPT, LLaMA are models that are trained on large amounts of data and are adaptable to a wide range of tasks. They are the basis of most state-of-the-art systems in Natural Language Processing. While the potential of these technologies for social good is large, the risks are also comparable. In this course, the students will learn the fundamentals about the modeling, theory and ethical aspects of LLMs and their applications, while gaining experience working with them. The course will be structured as a seminar, where one class is dedicated to instructor-led lecture and one to studentled discussion of papers around topics covered in the lecture. Each paper discussion will be structured as a panel of 3-4 students, each with an assigned role. Each panel role covers one aspect of critically assessing an academic/industry paper. Everyone in the class should participate by commenting and asking questions from the panel. The class is project-based, meaning there will be a semester-long project focused on evaluating LLMs and/or building LLMs around a topic/problem/task you care about, with an end of semester final paper. The projects will be done by groups of 3-4 students.

Prerequisite(s): COMS W3134 or W3136 or W3137 (or equivalent). Background in probability/statistics and linear algebra is also required and experience with Python programming is strongly encouraged. Some previous or concurrent exposure to NLP, AI or machine learning is beneficial, but not required.

• Department: Computer Science @Barnard
• MW 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
• Instructor: Smaranda Muresan
  h-index: 22 Info
• 3 points

Persuasion at Scale: Data, Causality, AI

Online persuasion, measurement of persuasive effects through experiments and natural experiments, machine learning for message targeting and optimization, bandit algorithms, recommender systems, and experiments on large language model persuasion. In Python notebooks with no prerequisites. Political Science undergraduate research methods requirement; Statistics applied minor and applied tracks. Cross-listed with Applied Mathematics

• Department: Political Science
• MW 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
• Instructor: chris wiggins
  CULPA: 12 Wikipedia h-index: 34 Info
• 3 points

The Secret Lives of Plants

An interdisciplinary seminar exploring the new science of plant intelligence alongside the colonial, racial, and ecological histories that have shaped human-plant relations. Drawing on plant biology, Indigenous knowledge systems, Black botanical legacies, critical race studies, and multispecies anthropology, the course asks what plants know, who has always known them, and what they have been made to do in the service of empire. Students purchase and maintain a living plant throughout the semester. Readings range from bench science to postcolonial theory to Caribbean literature.

• Department: Anthropology
• T 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Vanessa L Agard-Jones
  CULPA: 3 Info
• 4 points

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOUNDATIONS

AI FOUNDATIONS

Understanding the technical foundations and implementation details of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and systems enables nuanced approaches to responsible use, evaluation, and critique of artificial intelligence. This course introduces the ideas and techniques underlying the design of intelligent computer systems. We will trace the development of the field from the symbolic, knowledge-rich approaches of 20th century AI (e.g., rule-based systems), through statistical approaches that rely on increasingly large amounts of data (e.g., machine learning), and finish with an overview of contemporary large language models. We will explore how to apply these techniques in different domains, ranging from criminal justice to video games, and consider the interplay of AI and society throughout the course. Prerequisites: COMS W3134 (or equivalent).

• Department: Computer Science @Barnard
• TR 8:40 a.m.-9:55 a.m.
• Instructor: Faculty
  h-index: 37 Info
• 3 points

RESEARCH DESIGN: SCOPE AND METHODS

RESEARCH DESIGN: SCOPE&ME

This class aims to introduce students to the logic of social scientific inquiry and research design. Although it is a course in political science, our emphasis will be on the science part rather than the political part — we’ll be reading about interesting substantive topics, but only insofar as they can teach us something about ways we can do systematic research. This class will introduce students to a medley of different methods to conduct social scientific research.

• Department: Political Science
• MW 5:40 p.m.-6:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Abdullah Aydogan
  h-index: 4 Info
• 4 points

SCOPE AND METHODS - DISC

This is the required discussion section for
POLS UN3720.

• Department: Political Science
• 0 points

AMERICAN MATERIAL CULTURE

• Department: Anthropology @Barnard
• W 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Severin Fowles
  CULPA: 24 Info
• 4 points

Auden

Poems and prose by W. H. Auden, at length and in depth. To apply for this seminar, send a brief email message to 
edward.mendelson@columbia.edu
 that includes: your year (senior, junior, etc.), the names of some English courses you have taken, and one sentence saying why you want to take the course.

• Department: English and Comparative Literature
• T 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Edward Mendelson
  CULPA: 64 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

The Thirties: Metropole and Colony

The Thirties: Metropole/C

This course focuses on the tumultuous 1930s, which witnessed the growth of anticolonial movements, the coming to power of totalitarian and fascist regimes, and calls for internationalism and a new world vision, among other major developments. Even as fascism laid down its roots in parts of Europe, the struggle for independence from European colonial rule accelerated in Asia and Africa, and former subjects engaged with ideas and images about the shape of their new nations, in essays, fiction, poetry, and theater. Supporters and critics of nationalism existed on both sides of the metropole-colony divide, as calls for internationalism sought to stem the rising tide of ethnocentric thinking and racial particularism in parts of Europe as well as the colonies. Ostensibly a gesture of resistance against imperial control, anti-colonialism also sparked debates about re-visioning gender relations, the place of minorities in the nation, religious difference and secularism, and models of world unity, among other issues. The course aims to consider the intersection of these debates with resistance to 1930s fascism: Did anti- fascist resistance in the metropole draw inspiration from anticolonial struggles? Conversely, did the spectre of fascism and authoritarianism present a cautionary tale to the project of nation-building in former colonies?

We will read works from both the metropole and the colonies to track the crisscrossing of ideas, beginning with writers whose works foreshadowed the convulsive events of the 1930s and beyond (H.G. Wells, E.M. Forster, Rabindranath Tagore), then moving on to writers who published some of their greatest work in the 1930s (Virginia Woolf, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Mulk Raj Anand, M.K. Gandhi, Raja Rao, C.L.R. James), and concluding with an author who reassessed the events of the 1930s from a later perspective (George Lamming).

• Department: English and Comparative Literature
• T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Gauri Viswanathan
  CULPA: 9 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS

CONTEMPORARY US WOMEN WRI

Beginning in the 1970s, feminist literary scholars advocated for a drastic shift in who was considered an appropriate subject of literary study, pushing for the recovery of forgotten women writers and for more serious attention to be paid to women publishing in the present. In the intervening decades, the category of “American women writers” has been both expanded and questioned, as scholars and readers have challenged exclusionary definitions that did not account for differences of race, sexuality, or class or that relied on limiting, binary understandings of gender. What, then, does it mean to study “American women writers” in our contemporary moment?

In order to think through this question, we’ll consider how various writers have addressed three major themes: political and national belonging, responding to and reinventing literary traditions, and depicting the body and its relationship to the erotic. We’ll think about questions of identity throughout, examining our texts through intersecting lenses of gender, race, sexuality, class, and disability while working to avoid essentializing approaches. This course will introduce you to multiple approaches to literary study, including digital humanities (through a Wikipedia editing project), archival research (in collaboration with the Barnard archives), and traditional close reading and literary analysis.

Scholars have long theorized the relationship between gender and genre; accordingly, we will look at literature across a range of genres as well as that which pushes generic boundaries. We’ll read writing from the 1970s through the present day; writers will include (but are not limited to) Alison Bechdel, Edwidge Danticat, Ada Limón, Layli Long Soldier, Sally Wen Mao, Toni Morrison, Maggie Nelson, Torrey Peters, and Monique Truong.

• Department: English @Barnard
• TR 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
• Instructor: Meredith A Benjamin
  CULPA: 5 Info
• 3 points

LITERATURE ON DRUGS

Whether as sources of artistic creativity, symbols of moral decay, avenues of escape, or
foundations for alternative forms of sociality, drugs are an inexhaustible source of inspiration
for all manner of storytellers. Why is that? This course surveys the narrative history of
“literature on drugs” from three angles: first, we examine poetry and fiction composed under
the influence of mind-altering intoxicants; second, we study literature about drug-induced
experiences and the counter-cultures they have fueled; and we ask why literary criticism is
essential to articulate the danger and allure of drugs, past, present, and future. We will read
from literary psychonauts including William Blake, William S. Burroughs, Philip K. Dick, Allen
Ginsberg, Aldous Huxley, Anaïs Nin, and Hunter S. Thompson; historians of the highly weird like
Michel Foucault and Erik Davis; and an array of primary sources on the legal, therapeutic, and
psychological complexities of drug use, such as Billy Holiday, Sigmund Freud, William James,
and Margaret Mead. We also will consider the cinematic history of literature on drugs with
films like Altered States, Trainspotting, and Apocalypse Now. The course incorporates hands-on
archival work and includes a visit to Columbia’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

• Department: English @Barnard
• TR 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Nathan Gorelick
  Info
• 3 points

Mathematics for Machine Learning

MATH FOR MACHINE LEARNING

Mathematical foundations of machine learning: Linear algebra, multivariable calculus, and probability and statistics. Comprehensive review and additional treatment of
relevant topics used in the analysis and design of machine learning models. Preliminary exposure to core algorithms such as linear regression, gradient descent, principal
component analysis, low-rank approximations, and kernel methods.

• Department: Computer Science
• MW 1:10 p.m.-2:25 p.m.
• Instructor: Tony B Dear
  CULPA: 17 Info
• 3 points

AFRICA AND FRANCE

This course endeavors to understand the development of the peculiar and historically conflictual relationship that exists between France, the nation-states that are its former African colonies, and other contemporary African states. It covers the period from the 19th century colonial expansion through the current ‘memory wars’ in French politics and debates over migration and colonial history in Africa. Historical episodes include French participation in and eventual withdrawal from the Atlantic Slave Trade, emancipation in the French possessions, colonial conquest, African participation in the world wars, the wars of decolonization, and French-African relations in the contexts of immigration and the construction of the European Union. Readings will be drawn extensively from primary accounts by African and French intellectuals, dissidents, and colonial administrators. However, the course offers neither a collective biography of the compelling intellectuals who have emerged from this relationship nor a survey of French-African literary or cultural production nor a course in international relations. Indeed, the course avoids the common emphasis in francophone studies on literary production and the experiences of elites and the common focus of international relations on states and bureaucrats. The focus throughout the course is on the historical development of fields of political possibility and the emphasis is on sub-Saharan Africa. Group(s): B, C Field(s): AFR, MEU

• Department: History
• M 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Gregory Mann
  CULPA: 15 h-index: 13 Info
• 4 points

BERL/ISTANBUL:MIGRATN,CLTR,VAL

BERL/ISTANBUL:MIGRATNCLTRVAL

An intensive seminar analyzing questions of migration, identity, (self-) representation, and values with regard to the Turkish minority living in Germany today. Starting with a historical description of the „guest worker“ program that brought hundreds of thousands of Turkish nationals to Germany in the 1960s and 1970s, the course will focus on the experiences and cultural production of the second and third generations of Turkish Germans, whose presence has profoundly transformed German society and culture. Primary materials include diaries, autobiographies, legal and historical documents, but the course will also analyze poetry, novels, theater plays and films. In German.

• Department: Germanic Languages
• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Claudia Breger
  CULPA: 2 Info
• 3 points

INDEPENDENT STUDY

Students who wish to do an independent study project (I.S.P.), should speak with a Political Science faculty member willing to serve as sponsor, then fill out a Request for Approval of Credit for Independent Study (see Registrars link below) and obtain signatures from the sponsor and from our Department Chair. File this form with the Committee on Programs and Academic Standing, which must approve all requests. (It must be filed with the C.P.A.S. well before the Registrars program-filing deadline for the semester of the I.S.P.) Note that no credit is given for an internship or job experience in or by itself, but credit is given for an academic research paper written in conjunction with an internship, subject to the procedures outlined above. The internship and the I.S.P. can be in the same semester, or you may do the I.S.P. in the semester following the internship. A project approved for three or four points counts as an elective course for the purpose of the ten-course major or five-course minor requirement. No more than two such three- or four-point projects may be used for the major, and no more than one for the minor. An independent study project may not be used to satisfy either the colloquium or senior seminar requirement. Each instructor is limited to sponsoring one independent study project per semester. The Registrar will assign a POLS BC 3799 section and call number unique to the faculty sponsor. The Registrars ISP form: http://www.barnard.edu/sites/default/files/inline/indstudy.pdf. The Political Science faculty: http://polisci.barnard.edu/faculty-directory.

• Department: Political Science @Barnard
• Instructor: Faculty
  h-index: 37 Info
• 1-4 points

EARTH & ENVIR ENGIN LAB

EARTH & ENVIR ENGIN LAB I

Experiments on fundamental aspects of Earth and environmental engineering with emphasis on the applications of chemistry, biology and thermodynamics to environmental processes: energy generation, analysis and purification of water, environmental biology, and biochemical treatment of wastes. Students will learn the laboratory procedures and use analytical equipment firsthand, hence demonstrating experimentally the theoretical concepts learned in class.

• Department: Earth and Environmental Engineering
• TR 11 a.m.-1 p.m.
• Instructor: Luana Llanes
  Info
• 4 points

SEM IN CONTEMP ART PRACTICE

(Formerly R4601) New York City is the most abundant visual arts resource in the world. Visits to museums, galleries, and studios on a weekly basis. Students encounter a broad cross-section of art and are encouraged to develop ideas about what is seen. The seminar is led by a practicing artist and utilizes this perspective. Columbia College and General Studies Visual Arts Majors must take this class during their junior year. If the class is full, please visit http://arts.columbia.edu/undergraduate-visual-arts-program.

• Department: Visual Arts
• 3 points

ENVIR SCIENCE SENIOR SEM II

Guided, independent, in-depth research culminating in the senior thesis in the spring. Includes discussion about scientific presentations and posters, data analysis, library research methods and scientific writing. Students review work in progress and share results through oral reports. Weekly seminar to review work in progress and share results through oral and written reports. Prerequisite to EESC W3901.

• Department: Environmental Sciences @Barnard
• R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• 3 points

ENVIR SCIENCE SENIOR SEM II

Guided, independent, in-depth research culminating in the senior thesis in the spring. Includes discussion about scientific presentations and posters, data analysis, library research methods and scientific writing. Students review work in progress and share results through oral reports. Weekly seminar to review work in progress and share results through oral and written reports. Prerequisite to EESC W3901.

• Department: Environmental Sciences @Barnard
• R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• 3 points

COLL:POLITICS OF DEVELOPMENT

Prerequisites: V 1501 or equivalent Description: The semester-long course aims to study political and social factors behind economic development and exam empirical cases of the success and failure in economic growth in order to understand the key features of the development processes. In the last two centuries, some countries successfully achieved economic growth and development, while other failed to do so. Even in the post-WWII period, the world has witnessed the rise and decline of economies around the world. Why do nations succeed or fail in economic development? How do political institutions affect economic outcomes? What are the ways in which state and market interact and influence each other? Can democracy be considered a cause of development, an outgrowth of development, or neither and to which extent? How do external factors such as foreign aid encourage or discourage development? We will try to examine these questions by taking a historical-institutional and comparative approach and take a critical look at the role of political and other institutions by applying theoretical guidelines and empirical cases. We will explore competing explanations for the successes and failures of economic development in the world. Objective:1. Understand some important concepts and theories within the fields of comparative politics and political economy. To explore the interconnections between politics, economy, and society in the context of development policy and practice.2. Develop basic analytic skills to explore various factors that shape political, economic, and social development and underdevelopment in the world;3. Understand some country specific political economy processes and how these processes prove or disprove certain theories and policies.

• Department: Political Science @Barnard
• W 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Xiaobo Lu
  CULPA: 4 Info
• 4 points

CHEM ENG & APPLIED CHEM LAB

Emphasizes active, experiment-based resolution of open-ended problems involving use, design, and optimization of equipment, products, or materials. Under faculty guidance students formulate, carry out, validate, and refine experimental procedures, and present results in oral and written form. Develops analytical, communications, and cooperative problem-solving skills in the context of problems that span from traditional, large scale separations and processing operations to molecular level design of materials or products. Sample projects include: scale up of apparatus, process control, chemical separations, microfluidics, surface engineering, molecular sensing, and alternative energy sources. Safety awareness is integrated.

• Department: Chemical Engineering
• MW 1 p.m.-5 p.m.
• 3 points

Knowledge, Practice, Power

Knowledge, Practice, Power is a practical and multi-disciplinary exploration of research methods and interpretive strategies used in feminist scholarship, focusing on larger questions about how we know what we know, and who and what knowledge is for. Open to non-majors, but sophomore and junior majors in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) are encouraged to enroll in this course as preparation for Senior Seminar I. This course is required for students pursuing the concentration or minor in Feminist/Intersectional Science and Technology Studies. Prerequisite: 
Either
 one introductory WGSS course 
or
 Critical Approaches to Social and Cultural Theory 
or
 Permission of the Instructor.

• Department: Women's, Gender, Sexuality Studies @Barnard
• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Casidy Campbell
  Info
• 4 points

BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING LAB II

Biomedical experimental design and hypothesis testing. Statistical analysis of experimental measurements. Analysis of experimental measurements. Analysis of variance, post hoc testing. Fluid shear and cell adhesion, neuro-electrophysiology, soft tissue biomechanics, biomecial imaging and ultrasound, characterization of excitable tissues, microfluidics.

• Department: Biomedical Engineering
• R 1:10 p.m.-3:45 p.m.
• W 1:10 p.m.-3:45 p.m.
• 3 points

Workshop in Sustainable Development: Eco

WORKSHOP IN SDEV SOUTH AF

This course is a client-based workshop in which students apply their experience and knowledge to address critical, real-world sustainability challenges. The primaryclient is Wild Tomorrow, a non-profit conservation organization focused on ecosystem restoration and community development in a biodiversity hotspot in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Students will contribute to the sustainable protection, rewilding, and expansion of a 4,600-acre wildlife corridor adjacent to the UNESCO World Heritage iSimangaliso Wetland Park. Over spring break, students will travel to the Greater Ukuwela Nature Reserve to learn from local experts while gaining practical experience in restoring habitat for threatened species, addressing human-wildlife conflict, and exploring the intersection of conservation and community development. Post-trip class sessions will consist of focused teamwork on the final report and presentations.

• Department: Earth Institute
• M 2 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Jenna M Lawrence
  CULPA: 6 Info
• 4 points

FUNDAMENTALS OF COMPUTER SYSTS

Fundamentals of computer organization and digital logic. Boolean algebra, Karnaugh maps, basic gates and components, flipflops and latches, counters and state machines, basics of combinational and sequential digital design. Assembly language, instruction sets, ALU’s, single-cycle and multi-cycle processor design, introduction to pipelined processors, caches, and virtual memory.

• Department: Computer Science
• TR 8:40 a.m.-9:55 a.m.
• TR 4:10 p.m.-5:25 p.m.
• Instructor: Zishen Wan
  Info
• Instructor: Stephen A Edwards
  CULPA: 21 h-index: 35 Info
• 3 points

Citizenship: Regional and Global Histori

Citizenship in South Asia

This seminar explores the making and unmaking of citizenship, adopting regional and global histories from South Asia. Beginning with a brief overview of early twentieth century debates over imperial citizenship involving the Britain, its colonies, and North America and the making of a global color line in the years leading up to the formal end of empires, we look at how important political events (the 1947 Partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan, the 1971 War of independence for Bangladesh among others) were important inflection points in the rethinking of the relationship between national identity, belonging and formal-legal citizenship and its impact on people’s understanding of citizenship. Our discussions of citizenship after empire will include readings on citizenship debates involving the former Portuguese and French possessions in India in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as a discussion of the broader debates over citizenship and belonging involving the South Asian diaspora in Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. We will also look at how debates over indigeneity and authenticity mark citizenship debates in Nepal, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka as well as parts of Southeast Asia, and how this shapes global citizenship and refugee regimes. Returning to India, we consider how unmaking citizenship affects both people who stay behind and engage with state structures as well as those who are on the move, pursuing education or employment opportunities beyond it, shaped by uneven access to rights and shaping their social and political identities.

• Department: History
• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Kalyani Ramnath
  Info
• 4 points

COLL ON MODERN EAST ASIA TEXTS

Prerequisites: AHUM UN3400 is recommended as background. Introduction to and exploration of modern East Asian literature through close reading and discussion of selected masterpieces from the 1890s through the 1990s by Chinese, Japanese, and Korean writers such as Mori Ogai, Wu Jianren, Natsume Soseki, Lu Xun, Tanizaki Jun’ichiro, Shen Congwen, Ding Ling, Eileen Chang, Yi Sang, Oe Kenzaburo, O Chong-hui, and others. Emphasis will be on cultural and intellectual issues and on how literary forms manifested, constructed, or responded to rapidly shifting experiences of modernity in East Asia.

• Department: East Asian Languages and Cultures
• T 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Iris Kim
  Info
• 4 points

SENIOR THESIS SEMINAR

A year-long course for outstanding senior majors who want to conduct research in primary sources on a topic of their choice in any aspect of history, and to write a senior thesis possibly leading toward departmental honors. Field(s): ALL

• Department: History
• R 10:10 a.m.-noon
• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• R 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Tunc Sen
  Info
• Instructor: James Stafford
  Info
• Instructor: Michael F Stanislawski
  CULPA: 66 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

Beyond the Great Wall: Nomadic Empires a

Since Antiquity, the Great Wall has become both a geographical and socio-cultural fault line between steppe nomads and the Chinese. More than a physical and territorial boundary, the Great Wall also functions as a powerful conceptual metaphor, symbolizing the gap between insiders and outsiders. The intellectual discourses of “frontier” and “border” embodied by the Wall have kept alive well into modern China.
The course follows a broadly chronological order from the Xiongnu Empire through the Mongols to modern times. Additionally, it incorporates thematic explorations such as nomadic culture, Sinitic concepts of unity, ethno-cultural diversity, multi-linguistic empires, and so on. We will make use of Chinese literature and art on the one hand, and primary sources from Central Asia on the other, to develop a comprehensive and comparative understanding of both sides of the Great Wall. As such, we ask how the nomads served as agents of change in Eurasian and even world history, and in turn, we problematize some enduring challenges faced by the Chinese state from the past to the present.
Listed as a Global Core, this course assumes no background of Chinese or Central Asian language and literature. Students are expected to engage thoughtfully and critically with course materials, including primary sources translated into English and secondary scholarship. Readings will include classical texts from Sinitic culture as well as diverse literary sources on nomadic peoples, such as The Secret History of the Mongols and travelogues by Marco Polo. These primary texts will be examined alongside secondary scholarship, with visual and material objects integrated to complement the written texts.

• Department: Asian and Middle East @Barnard
• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Lili Xia
  Info
• 4 points

Seminar on Law and Psychology

Psychology and Law Semina

This seminar explores how psychological theory and research—particularly from social, cognitive, and developmental psychology—can illuminate, inform, and challenge legal institutions, practices, norms, and debates. The course examines how people think about, interact with, and are affected by the legal system in roles such as defendants, jurors, judges, lawyers, and citizens. Topics include legal decision-making, responsibility and intent, bias and discrimination, forensic assessment, mental illness and legal capacity, eyewitness testimony, interrogations and false confessions, punishment, and stigma.

We will consider how psychological insights help explain how the law operates in practice and critically assess how legal policies align with—or diverge from—psychological evidence. While grounded in psychological science, the course also draws on interdisciplinary work from law and legal scholarship, sociology, public health, and neuroscience. We will read empirical studies and legal analyses that address psychological issues relevant to the law. The principal goal is to understand the legal system not only as a body of rules, but as a human institution shaped by cognitive, emotional, and social dynamics.

 

Over the course of the semester we will (1) analyze how core concepts in psychology apply to legal contexts; (2) assess psychological studies by examining the strength of their research design and considering their implications for legal concepts and practices; (3) examine how developmental, cognitive, and affective processes affect legal decision-making; (4) identify and critique the use of psychological evidence in courts and policy debates; and (5) explore how neuroscience is reshaping legal understandings of responsibility, culpability, and sentencing, while critically examining its ethical and evidentiary limitations.

• Department: Psychology
• T 8:10 p.m.-10 p.m.
• Instructor: Michael J Naft
  Info
• 4 points

Colloquium on the State

The state is often considered the foundational institution of political life. But what
is
the state? (Is there such a thing?) While human beings have long formed political communities of some sort, the form of organization we call
the state
is a modern phenomenon, and perhaps a stranger one than we tend to think. This course asks what makes states distinct from other kinds of collective organization and how we should understand them as agents of political life. What is the source of the state’s particular forms of power and authority? What are states’ ends—their imperatives, motivations, and goals—and by what means do they advance them? Do states have defining features and capacities across time, or are these always historically contingent? How do states both reflect existing social relationships and create new ones? How have states changed over time, and how might they evolve in the future? This course will pose these questions by reading canonical theorists of the state, including Hobbes, Hegel, Weber, and Marx, alongside scholarship in political theory, political science, and related social scientific fields, leading up to contemporary debates and problems.

• Department: Political Science @Barnard
• W 11 a.m.-12:50 p.m.
• Instructor: Alyssa Battistoni
  Info
• 4 points

HUMAN RIGHTS & PUBLIC HEALTH

Prerequisites: Enrollment in the course is open to 18 undergraduates who have completed at least one core course in human rights and /or international law. This seminar introduces students to the field of health and human rights. It examines how to advocate for and implement public health strategies using a human rights framework. It takes note of current international and domestic debates about the utility of a ;human rights-based approach; to health, discusses methods and ethics of health-related human rights research, and examines case studies of human rights investigations to explore the role of human rights analysis in promoting public health.

• Department: Human Rights (HRTB)
• W 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Kayum Ahmed
  Info
• 4 points

INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH

Prerequisites: the instructor's permission. (Seminar). As the great imperial powers of Britain, France, and Belgium, among others, ceded self-rule to the colonies they once controlled, formerly colonized subjects engaged in passionate discussion about the shape of their new nations not only in essays and pamphlets but also in fiction, poetry, and theatre. Despite the common goal of independence, the heated debates showed that the postcolonial future was still up for grabs, as the boundary lines between and within nations were once again redrawn. Even such cherished notions as nationalism were disputed, and thinkers like the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore sounded the alarm about the pitfalls of narrow ethnocentric thinking. Their call for a philosophy of internationalism went against the grain of ethnic and racial particularism, which had begun to take on the character of national myth. The conflict of perspectives showed how deep were the divisions among the various groups vying to define the goals of the postcolonial nation, even as they all sought common cause in liberation from colonial rule. Nowhere was this truer than in India. The land that the British rulers viewed as a test case for the implementation of new social philosophies took it upon itself to probe their implications for the future citizenry of a free, democratic republic. We will read works by Indian writers responding to decolonization and, later, globalization as an invitation to rethink the shape of their societies. Beginning as a movement against imperial control, anti-colonialism also generated new discussions about gender relations, secularism and religious difference, the place of minorities in the nation, the effects of partition on national identity, among other issues. With the help of literary works and historical accounts, this course will explore the challenges of imagining a post-imperial society in a globalized era without reproducing the structures and subjectivities of the colonial state. Writers on the syllabus include Rabindranath Tagore, M.K. Gandhi, B.R. Ambedkar, Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao, Mahasweta Devi, Bapsi Sidwa, Rohinton Mistry, Amitav Ghosh, and Arundhati Roy. Application Instructions: E-mail Professor Viswanathan (gv6@columbia.edu ) with the subject heading Indian Writing in English seminar. In your message, include basic information: your name, school, major, year of study, and relevant courses taken, along with a brief statement about why you are interested in taking the course.

• Department: English and Comparative Literature
• W 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Gauri Viswanathan
  CULPA: 9 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

THE HISTORY OF KOREA TO 1900

This course traces Korean history from the earliest recorded kingdoms to 1900, situating the development of Korean civilization within both East Asian and global contexts. Students will explore major political, social, intellectual, cultural, and diplomatic issues of premodern Korea through diverse interpretive approaches and a wide range of primary sources that illuminate both everyday life and broader historical transformations. No prior knowledge of Korean history is required, and all readings are in English.

• Department: East Asian Languages and Cultures
• R 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: Jungwon Kim
  CULPA: 2 Info
• 4 points

Signals: Networks, Publics, and Performa

This visual arts seminar explores the pirating, transformation, and circulation of media from the 1960s to the present. It examines the ways that media artists question public participation, democratic commitment, and collective memory. During the 1960s in the United States and abroad, the promise of networked communication prompted a consideration of global connectivity that brought artists and artworks outside of the gallery into the public sphere. Artist, often activists, explored the dissemination of information, and they commandeered messaging. Many of these artists positioned their output against mainstream media, while other artists seized existing media streams with the aim, optimistically, to alter them. Case studies include Stan VanDerBeek, Dara Birnbaum, Black Audio Collective, Tiffany Sia, Sondra Perry, and CAMP.  This course brings together seminar discussions, the practice of making, and the hosting of practitioners; it is designed to offer students an introduction to various aspects of media as it is crafted and curated within and without museum environments.

• Department: Art History @Barnard
• W 10:10 p.m.-noon
• Instructor: Janina P Marshall
  Info
• 4 points

OUT OF PLACE

Literature has always attracted the outsider, and literature itself seems to demand from its writers to momentarily step out of the fray in order to hope to observe it. The modern age has offered different examples of this. When Bernard Levin described V.S. Naipaul as an ‘inquiline’ author — meaning, a guest or a lodger, an animal that lives in another's nest — Naipaul responded:

‘When I see the sun set here at Stonehenge, there is a way that it is somebody else’s sun, somebody else’s landscape, it has somebody’s else's history connected with it. I can't avoid that: that's the way I think.’

When Virginia Woolf received news of the death of Joseph Conrad, she sat down and penned an admiring obituary that opens with what might be read as a presumptuously arrogant statement:

‘Suddenly, without giving us time to arrange our thoughts or prepare our phrases, our guest has left us; and his withdrawal without farewell or ceremony is in keeping with his mysterious arrival, long years ago, to take up his lodging in this country.’

Despite Woolf’s English snobbishness, her words reveal something true about Conrad’s situation, and about the place of many other writers who were, for one reason or another, obliged to operate in foreign lands, inside other languages or states of being, authors such as V.S. Naipaul, Ovid, Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad, Jean Rhys, Waguih Ghali and David Malouf.

Through the close analysis of a narrow selection of works, this class will chart the ways in which such works reveal the nature and imaginative location of the artist out of place. We will be interested in the question of to what extent is writing a process of mapping an intellectual, aesthetic, psychic or geographical territory. We will be motivated by close reading, interpretation, and the adventure of comparing different portraits of being an outsider-insider.

We may refer to fragments by travellers and explorers such as Leo Africanus, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Bartolomé de las Casas, and Ibn Battuta, or look at the work of artists who crossed boundaries, such as the 15th century Venetian painter Gentile Bellini and the impact of his visit to Mehmed II’s court in 1479, or the influence of the Arabesque on the music of Claude Debussy.

We will explore what it is about literature and, in particular, the novel that has made it so well-suited for por

• Department: English @Barnard
• TR 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Hisham Matar
  CULPA: 2 Wikipedia Info
• 3 points

Photo as Material: A Studio Lab in Inter

Photo as Material:A Studi

Images today can feel increasingly unstable, untethered to physical and interpersonal experience, and also unstoppable, generating and proliferating at accelerating speeds. What do we do with all this material? What are the global consequences of the mass circulation of images? And how do artists specifically make sense of the contemporary state of photography? This course invites students into a non-conventional, interdisciplinary approach to making, reading, critiquing, and relating to images. We begin with the fundamentally physical elements of photography—space, light, and lens—and end with the embedded histories, social relations, and personal narratives that photographs can trace or carry. We discuss case studies and readings by and about artists and theorists who research and make work across international contexts, exploring, for example, how early colonial histories of photography prefigure its contemporary conditions, and how images can echo or challenge patterns of displacement and resistance. We create artworks informed by this research, exploring how to physically manipulate, present, and disseminate images in hands-on thematic projects that push photography beyond the screen or frame and into the material world.

• Department: Art History @Barnard
• R 10:10 a.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Mira Dayal
  Info
• 3 points

CHINA'S FOREIGN RELATIONS

This course will review and analyze the foreign policy of the People's Republic of China from 1949 to the present. It will examine Beijing's relations with the Soviet Union, the United States, Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Third World during the Cold War, and will discuss Chinese foreign policy in light of the end of the Cold War, changes in the Chinese economy in the reform era, the post-Tiananmen legitimacy crisis in Beijing, and the continuing rise of Chinese power and influence in Asia and beyond.

This lecture course will analyze the causes and consequences of Beijing’s foreign policies from 1949 to the present.

Students must register for a mandatory discussion section.

• Department: Political Science
• TR 8:40 a.m.-9:55 a.m.
• Instructor: Thomas J Christensen
  CULPA: 2 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

SENIOR THESIS SEMINAR II

Prerequisites: Must complete ANTH BC3871x. Limited to Barnard Senior Anthropology Majors. Offered every Spring. Discussion of research methods and planning and writing of a Senior Essay in Anthropology will accompany research on problems of interest to students, culminating in the writing of individual Senior Essays. The advisory system requires periodic consultation and discussion between the student and her adviser as well as the meeting of specific deadlines set by the department each semester.

• Department: Anthropology @Barnard
• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• 4 points

SENIOR THESIS SEMINAR II

Prerequisites: Must complete ANTH BC3871x. Limited to Barnard Senior Anthropology Majors. Offered every Spring. Discussion of research methods and planning and writing of a Senior Essay in Anthropology will accompany research on problems of interest to students, culminating in the writing of individual Senior Essays. The advisory system requires periodic consultation and discussion between the student and her adviser as well as the meeting of specific deadlines set by the department each semester.

• Department: Anthropology @Barnard
• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• 4 points

SENIOR THESIS SEMINAR II

Prerequisites: Must complete ANTH BC3871x. Limited to Barnard Senior Anthropology Majors. Offered every Spring. Discussion of research methods and planning and writing of a Senior Essay in Anthropology will accompany research on problems of interest to students, culminating in the writing of individual Senior Essays. The advisory system requires periodic consultation and discussion between the student and her adviser as well as the meeting of specific deadlines set by the department each semester.

• Department: Anthropology @Barnard
• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• 4 points

SENIOR THESIS SEMINAR II

Prerequisites: Must complete ANTH BC3871x. Limited to Barnard Senior Anthropology Majors. Offered every Spring. Discussion of research methods and planning and writing of a Senior Essay in Anthropology will accompany research on problems of interest to students, culminating in the writing of individual Senior Essays. The advisory system requires periodic consultation and discussion between the student and her adviser as well as the meeting of specific deadlines set by the department each semester.

• Department: Anthropology @Barnard
• M 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• 4 points

Introduction to Classical Chinese Philos

Classical Chinese Philoso

Many of China’s most influential philosophical traditions emerge within the context of war and harsh living conditions following the collapse of the Zhou dynasty, during the historical period known as the Warring States (6th-3rd c. BCE). In response to the political turmoil they lived through, thinkers of the Confucian, Daoist, Mohist, Zhuangist, and Legalist schools of thought each posited their own diagnostic, emerging with radically different philosophical views. Their disagreements included issues such as the origin of virtues, the function of ritual, the appropriate extension of moral feelings, the demands of good governance, the proper human place in the natural world, cosmology, and the aim of argumentation. This course will introduce students to these seminal figures and themes in early Chinese thought. We will occasionally consider philosophical issues overlapping with the Western canon, but our primary focus is on the unique concepts and context which guided the inquiry of Chinese thinkers. Our inquiry will be grounded in primary texts, with secondary materials as supplements. Readings will be entirely in English, and no knowledge of Classical Chinese is required (though we will sometimes discuss issues in translation which require reference to Chinese terms). Please note that as this course is centered on intellectual traditions indigenous to early China, we will not systematically consider comparable issues through the lens of Buddhist thought. 

As this course is designed to be accessible to students beginning their philosophical studies (and not just as an extension or application of ideas acquired through the Western canon), there are no prerequisites. As with any philosophy course, success in this class does not rely heavily on prior knowledge or reading, but rather on the continued exercise and refinement of the philosophical skills of critical thinking, writing, discussion and argumentation. A typical session will include an introductory lecture from me and a brief student presentation in the first hour, before transitioning to group discussion in the second hour. In this small, seminar format class you are expected to not only read all the assigned material and attend classes, but actively engage in and contribute to discussion.

• Department: Philosophy
• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Helen Luo
  Info
• 3 points

LISTENINGS: AN ETHNOG OF SOUND

LISTENING: AN ETHNOG OF SOUND

We explore the possibilities of an ethnography of sound through a range of listening encounters: in resonant urban soundscapes of the city and in natural soundscapes of acoustic ecology; from audible pasts and echoes of the present; through repetitive listening in the age of electronic reproduction, and mindful listening that retraces an uncanniness inherent in sound. Silence, noise, voice, chambers, reverberation, sound in its myriad manifestations and transmissions.  From the captured souls of Edison’s phonography, to everyday acoustical adventures, the course turns away from the screen and dominant epistemologies of the visual for an extended moment, and does so in pursuit of sonorous objects.  How is it that sound so moves us as we move within its world, and who or what then might the listening subject be?

• Department: Anthropology
• T 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: John Pemberton
  CULPA: 15 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

Colloquium on Party Polarization in the

COLL: POLARIZATION IN THE

This research colloquium examines party polarization in the United States: how it has been conceptualized and measured, what causes and consequences scholars have identified, and–just as importantly–where the concept’s explanatory reach ends. Polarization has become a fashionable diagnosis for nearly everything that troubles American democracy; part of our task is to take the concept seriously enough to see where it has been stretched thin, conflated with adjacent phenomena (e.g., trait-based and geographic sorting, populism), or mistaken for something else entirely.

The colloquium is built around a semester-long case study. Each student adopts a U.S. state (New York is reserved as the whole class’s shared anchor case and teaching example) and uses it as a running laboratory for the concepts, data, and methods we cover. Class time alternates between discussion of assigned readings and hands-on data analysis using R. Six scaffolded components–a background profile, a polarization diagnosis, a geographic sorting analysis, a trait-based sorting analysis, an impact analysis, and a causes analysis (the last aided by a three-week AI-assisted media project)–build on each other over the course of the semester and are then assembled and revised into a final research paper, presented to the class in the last two weeks.

The course mixes traditional and AI-assisted work. Early in the semester, you’ll do original, manual writing and coding–independent of AI–to build fluency, voice, and critical thinking skills. Later, we incorporate AI tools deliberately, to (1) facilitate a more ambitious scope of analysis than would otherwise be possible in a single semester; and (2) develop judgment in using AI as a collaborator that can sharpen and enhance thinking and analysis, rather than substitute for these critical skills. As we incorporate AI, we will work on critically evaluating its output and disclosing its use appropriately.

• Department: Political Science @Barnard
• M 6:10 p.m.-8 p.m.
• Instructor: Katherine L Krimmel
  CULPA: 6 Info
• 4 points

SENIOR THESIS SEMINAR

Computer Science majors at Barnard can choose to pursue a year-long senior research thesis for their senior experience. A senior thesis is intended to be a substantial piece of work in which the student engages in independent and original research. They should register for two semesters of research projects in CS through their faculty advisor’s home department (Barnard or Columbia), each for at least 3 credits (one in Fall and one in the Spring). They should additionally register for this course. The main goal is to provide students with a venue to discuss their senior thesis projects with each other. In the seminar, students learn how to communicate and present their work. They also become more familiar with other students’ areas of research and other types of research projects that fall under the umbrella of computer science. The seminar sometimes also features guest speakers in various areas of CS; students participate and engage in discussion with the speaker, further developing their research communication skills. The instructor of this course functions as a secondary advisor for the students’ projects. At the end of the academic year, the students present their projects to the CS community at Barnard.

• Department: Computer Science @Barnard
• W noon-1:50 p.m.
• Instructor: Tiffany Tseng
  Info
• 1 points

BEOWULF

This course will primarily consist in the task of translating the remarkably challenging poem
Beowulf
.  We will be reading (smaller) portions of the vast quantity of secondary texts as we negotiate and debate issues raised by our readings and contemporary scholarship.  As we work through the language of the text, comparing translations with our own, we will also be tracking concepts. Each student will be using our communal site (location tbd) for posting translations as well as for starting individual projects on word clusters / concepts.

• Department: English and Comparative Literature
• M 4:10 p.m.-6 p.m.
• Instructor: David M Yerkes
  CULPA: 41 Info
• 4 points

THE MONGOLS IN HISTORY

Study of the role of the Mongols in Eurasian history, focusing on the era of the Great Mongol Empire. The roles of Chinggis and Khubilai Khan and the modern fate of the Mongols to be considered.

• Department: East Asian Languages and Cultures
• T 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Morris Rossabi
  CULPA: 12 Wikipedia Info
• 3 points

Research Training

Research training course. Recommended in preparation for laboratory related research.

• Department: Mechanical Engineering
• Instructor: Matei T Ciocarlie
  Info
• 0 points

UNDERGRAD RESRCH-APPLD PHYSICS

This course may be repeated for credit, but no more than 6 points of this course may be counted toward the satisfaction of the B.S. degree requirements. Candidates for the B.S. degree may conduct an investigation in applied physics or carry out a special project under the supervision of the staff. Credit for the course is contingent upon the submission of an acceptable thesis or final report.

• Department: Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics
• Instructor: Carlos Paz Soldan
  h-index: 28 Info
• 0-4 points

UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH PROJECT

Candidates for the B.S. degree may conduct an investigation of some problem in chemical engineering or applied chemistry or carry out a special project under the supervision of the staff. Up to 6 points may be counted toward the technical elective content requirement. (Note that if more than 3 points of research are pursued, an undergraduate thesis is required.)

• Department: Chemical Engineering
• Instructor: Scott Banta
  CULPA: 1 h-index: 36 Info
• Instructor: Kyle Bishop
  h-index: 42 Info
• Instructor: Christopher M Boyce
  h-index: 17 Info
• Instructor: Juliana Silva Alves Carneiro
  Info
• Instructor: Christopher J Durning
  CULPA: 3 Info
• Instructor: Daniel Esposito
  h-index: 22 Info
• Instructor: Oleg Gang
  h-index: 45 Info
• Instructor: Jingyue Ju
  h-index: 77 Info
• Instructor: Sanat Kumar
  CULPA: 4 h-index: 79 Info
• Instructor: Lauren E Marbella
  Info
• Instructor: Vivian F McNeill
  Info
• Instructor: Allie Obermeyer
  h-index: 16 Info
• Instructor: Ben O'Shaughnessy
  CULPA: 3 Info
• Instructor: Neil D Dolinski
  Info
• Instructor: Mijo Simunovic
  CULPA: 1 h-index: 17 Info
• Instructor: Dan Steingart
  CULPA: 1 Wikipedia h-index: 36 Info
• Instructor: Alexander Urban
  h-index: 24 Info
• Instructor: Venkat Venkatasubramanian
  h-index: 58 Info
• Instructor: Alan West
  CULPA: 3 h-index: 48 Info
• Instructor: Asher Williams
  Info
• 0-6 points

Supervised Individual Research

Supervised individual research in Cognitive Science.  1-4 points.  May be repeated for credit.

• Department: Cognitive Science @Barnard
• Instructor: Ann Senghas
  CULPA: 17 Info
• 1-4 points

INTRO TO COMP LIT & SOCIETY

Introduction to concepts and methods of comparative literature in cross-disciplinary and global context. Topics may include: oral, print, and visual culture; epic, novel, and nation; literature of travel, exile, and diaspora; sex and gender transformation; the human/inhuman; writing trauma; urban imaginaries; world literature; medical humanities. Open only to students who have applied for and declared a major in Comparative Literature and Society or Medical Humanities.

• Department: Comparative Literature and Society, Institute for
• T 10:10 a.m.-noon
• W 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Arden A Hegele
  CULPA: 2 Info
• Instructor: Thomas Dodman
  CULPA: 2 Info
• 3 points

UNDERGRAD RESEARCH OR PROJECT

Independent work involving experiments, computer programming, analytical investigation, or engineering design.

• Department: Industrial Engineering and Operations Research
• Instructor: Anish Agarwal
  Info
• Instructor: Shipra Agrawal
  h-index: 24 Info
• Instructor: Eric Balkanski
  h-index: 13 Info
• Instructor: Daniel Bienstock
  h-index: 38 Info
• Instructor: Agostino Capponi
  h-index: 19 Info
• Instructor: Rachel Cummings
  h-index: 16 Info
• Instructor: Antonius B Dieker
  CULPA: 10 h-index: 19 Info
• Instructor: Adam N Elmachtoub
  CULPA: 1 h-index: 13 Info
• Instructor: Yuri Faenza
  h-index: 11 Info
• Instructor: Vineet Goyal
  h-index: 21 Info
• Instructor: Ali Hirsa
  h-index: 8 Info
• Instructor: Anran Hu
  Info
• Instructor: Garud Iyengar
  CULPA: 6 h-index: 30 Info
• 1-3 points

UNDERGRAD RESEARCH OR PROJECT

Independent work involving experiments, computer programming, analytical investigation, or engineering design.

• Department: Industrial Engineering and Operations Research
• Instructor: Garud Iyengar
  CULPA: 6 h-index: 30 Info
• Instructor: Hardeep Johar
  Info
• Instructor: Cedric Josz
  CULPA: 2 h-index: 13 Info
• Instructor: Soulaymane Kachani
  CULPA: 12 Info
• Instructor: Yaren Kaya
  Info
• Instructor: Christian Kroer
  h-index: 16 Info
• Instructor: Daniel Lacker
  CULPA: 4 h-index: 13 Info
• Instructor: Henry Lam
  h-index: 17 Info
• Instructor: Fabrizio Lecci
  Info
• 1-3 points